The launch has been a long while coming for Japanese fans to say the least. The smash hit title first went live in the U.S. over two weeks ago, before coming to most of Europe and Canada last week. That’s left many Japanese fans disappointed at having to watch without being able to join in the fun.

That’s all in the past now, and today’s release also coincides with school holidays in Japan — very deliberately, you’d suspect — which is only likely to give the game a further boost. The big question will be whether the servers, which are already inconsistent for many users across the world, can handle the strain of Japan’s Pokémon addicts piling in.

A source at Niantic told us that Japan would be the ‘halo’ launch in Asia, so we can likely expect that the game will rollout to other markets in the region over the coming week or so. We don’t have details of which ones and when, but Niantic has already suggested that China could be a tricky launch, so that one might be delayed. CEO John Hanke week on record last week saying that he wants the game to be live in 200 countries as soon as possible.